Page 16

The certainty in his voice, his quiet confidence, left her no option but to believe him. Inhaling a lungful of air, she yelled climbing and wedged her foot onto a yellow climbing hold. Her hand griped another—see, she had been paying attention—and she began to climb.

“That’s great.” His voice carried up. “Keep going.” She made the mistake of looking down, and her heart began to race. Oh God, her chest was too tight, she couldn’t breathe. “Eyes on me, Anna.” She blinked and found his gaze. A smile spread across his face and her breathing eased. “You realize that’s the first time you’ve done as I’ve asked?”

Despite her precarious position, a bubble of laughter escaped her. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me to climb to the top.”

“Nope.” He shot her another smile. “You’re going to climb up there because you want to.”

Damn it, she hated when he was right.

* * *

Watching Anna climb up the wall was . . . distracting. He’d watched hundreds of women climb, but he’d never fixated on a pair of buttocks, before now.

Maybe he’d never seen any quite so rounded, so pert.

He was so distracted by them, he almost missed the moment she reached the top. Letting out a loud whoop, her face beamed down at him, hair that was supposedly constrained in a scrunchie, now curled round her face. “That was so easy,” she sniggered. “I don’t know why you made such a fuss about it.”

He shook his head, unable to stop the smile that pushed its way to his mouth. After the unbearable sadness of the last two months, it was a shock to realize he could still form one. Quickly he dug out his phone and took a photo of her grinning face. “Ready to lower?”

“I thought I was supposed to say that!”

Now she had all the jargon. “Well go on then. I’ve not got all day.” It was a lie. He had all day. In fact, he had weeks of them. More, because he didn’t even have a job to go back to when this run up to Christmas was over. Only a job application, sent off more in hope than expectation.

Anna repeated his words and he told her he was lowering.

Then watched her bounce, rather inelegantly, down to the ground.

Once they’d detached, she shocked the hell out of him and jumped into his arms. “I did it!”

Automatically his own arms wrapped around her, hands shifting under her backside so he could hold her in place. Don’t think about having that tight, juicy butt in your hands. Don’t think about it!

Of their own volition, his fingers dug into the plump flesh and squeezed. His dick twitched. Fuck. With a silent groan he carefully lowered her to the floor before he embarrassed them both. “You did it.” He sounded gruff, like he’d raced up the wall and back rather than just stood at the bottom and watched.

“I did.” A pair of big blue eyes sparkled back at him. “Now it’s your turn.” She pointed over to the boulder wall. “Show me how the experts do that.”

He preferred climbing in the outdoors, the state parks like Allamuchy Mountain, one of his favorites. Still, he’d climbed these walls many times with her brother watching.

Pretending it felt no different to have Anna’s eyes on him, he scrambled efficiently up to the top and down again. If part of him had done it quickly to impress her, he put it down to male ego. Man wants to impress woman. Not this man wanting to impress this woman.

“Okay hotshot,” she greeted him as he walked—fine, perhaps he swaggered a bit—back to where she stood. “I guess I buy the drinks.”

“I don’t get dinner made for me?” He’d cooked her a passable mac and cheese the day he’d apparently lost the skateboard competition.

“We didn’t have a dinner deal. The drink is me admitting you looked vaguely impressive out there.”

He followed her towards the exit, slightly irked at the word vaguely. “What would I have to do to actually impress you?” Her eyes glinted and she opened her mouth but then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. “Whatever you were going to say, say it. I can take it.” He didn’t like the idea of her censoring her thoughts from him.

She shook her head as they walked into the cold December air. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to say it.”

Now he was intrigued. “It hasn’t been a good idea for me to say a lot of the stuff I have, but I did and we got through it.”

She hummed, then changed the subject. “Do you want a hot drink or an alcoholic drink?”

He made a split-second decision. “Alcoholic.”

They walked the next few blocks in silence, him still wondering what she hadn’t wanted to say. Her no doubt keeping silent in case she said it. They found a bar with a pleasant buzz to it despite being only four o’clock in the afternoon. Inside the Christmas decorations were up, the lights, the tree, the laughing Santa on the bar. Everything shouted fun, joy.

Grief hit him like a runaway truck and he had to turn away, to blink, and blink again as tears stung his eyes.